are being replaced by digital versions, and although the claim is always that the digital versions offer convenience for users, the reality is that they mostly just make things cheaper for the merchants/manufacturers by externalizing onto users costs in materials, labor, time, and effort. I can't tell you how many things that used to take 5 min. or less now take 20 min. or more, sometimes hours by the time you've worked through all the menus, read the manual, and perhaps finally reached a human who can actually help.
Every time we have a power outtage, I have to re-check the manuals for all my clocks just to re-set them. To get a prescription refilled, instead of a 3-min. phone call to the pharmacy, I have to work my way through an automated system that rarely offers the option I need, hold for a human for 20 min., and sometimes get disconnected. These are just 2, trivial examples, but I encounter dozens each week, big and small, and they add up to hundreds of hours per year.
It's a problem for all of us, and yes, even harder on seniors who didn't grow up in a digital environment and/or have already had to learn and unlearn how to use so many different digital facilities that the prospect of having to deal with one more, only to see it become inoperable a few years later, seems exhausting.
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